Shadows
by RETIRED666
Summary: Sam meets another child like him. This time it's a girl and her ability is even more than she can control! Can he help her?
1. The Boys

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters (Dean and Sam Winchester, Ellen, Jo or Gordon) and I'm not trying to steal them. They belong to Warnerbros. I do own Peyton**

**Chapter One: The Boys**

Her heart was beating fast, thumping in her throat. She looked over her shoulder at the man following her. He wasn't running after her, just walking leisurely behind her, a silver blade in hand. She ran through a few trees then her feet hit hard packed sand. She looked ahead and saw the lights on a small wooden building. She picked up her speed and ran up onto the wooden deck. She stopped, leaning over to catch her breath, glancing back at the man who was still slowly following her. Pulling open the door, she jumped inside the building and closed the door behind her. Turning around, she saw an older woman behind a bar talking to a man a few years older than her. A man about her age was playing pool with a blonde girl.

"You have to help me," she nearly choked. "There's a guy out there who's trying to kill me." Losing her composure she stumbled onto a stool and let the panic well up inside of her. "Please he's got a knife!"

The two men in the room looked at each other and swiftly went outside. The blonde girl came over and sat next to the hysterical young woman.

"It's okay," the older woman told her. "The boys will take care of it."

"The-the boys?" she said, swallowing.

The woman nodded. "Yeah. You'll be fine. I'm Ellen. This is my daughter, Jo," she added, pointing to the blonde girl.

"Oh. I'm-I'm Peyton."

"Nice to meet you, Peyton," Ellen said. "Now do you know why that man is trying to kill you?"

She shook her head. "No. He's been stalking me for two weeks. I don't know why. He-he called me a 'freak of nature.'"

Ellen glanced at Jo. "Do you know why?"

Peyton shook her head. "No. But he attacked me last week and then I didn't see him for a while. Then he just showed up today with a big slash across his face."

"A slash? Did he ever have one before?"

"No. It looked like a big knife or something like that did it."

"What does he look like?"

Peyton glanced toward the door. She could hear talking outside. "He's black and he always had a knife with him."

"No gun?" Ellen asked.

"No. Just a silver knife," Peyton told her.

Just then, the two 'boys' came in. The older one looked annoyed and pissed off and the younger one looked rather confused.

"It was Gordon," the older one said slowly.

"Gordon? I thought you dealt with him," Ellen replied.

"Yeah, me too."

"Do you know why he wanted to kill me?" Peyton asked quietly.

"Yeah," said the younger one, sitting down on the other side of her. "He said you were controlling a spirit called a deva."

"Deva?" she repeated.

"So you're not controlling a deva?"

"She doesn't even know what one is, Sam," the older man said from his seat next to Jo.

_Sam, _Peyton thought. _That's a nice name._ She slowly inspected him from head to toes. _He's really cute. Wonder if he's got a girlfriend._ She then turned her attention to the older brother. _He looks familiar_, she thought then gasped quietly.

"What?" the older man said, noticing her staring. "Is something wrong with my face?"

She shook her head. "No, it's just…" Biting her lip, she reached into a back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a picture. She looked at it for a minute then turned it over. Then she looked up at him. "Is your name Dean Winchester?"


	2. Picture

**Chapter Two: Picture**

Dean's head snapped up to look at her. "How did you know that?"

"She's got a picture, Dean," Sam said, looking over Peyton's shoulder at the picture in her hands.

"A picture?" He got up to walk over to her. It was certainly a picture. One of him that he had never seen before.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, taking the picture from her hands and turning it over. On the back was scrawled _Dean Winchester_. He looked up at Sam.

"That's Dad's handwriting," Sam said slowly.

Dean nodded. "Where did you get this?" he asked again.

"You won't believe me," Peyton said, taking the picture back from Dean.

"You'd be surprised what we believe," Sam said encouragingly.

She looked up at Ellen who gave her a nod. Taking a deep breath, she started. "I was nine years old. My dad was still at work and I was laying down on my bed just staring at the ceiling when this figure entered my room."

"Figure?" Dean interrupted. "What'd it look like?"

"It was silvery and translucent. I think it was a ghost. It came to the end of my bed and held out this picture. Then it said 'This is my son. You'll meet him in the future and he can help you.' Then it just disappeared."

Everyone was quiet when she finished her short summary of how she got Dean's picture even though she had never met him before.

"Dean," Sam said quietly. His brother was just staring at the floor, eyebrows furrowed as if he was trying hard to figure out what the girl was talking about. "Dean," he said again.

Dean looked up at his little brother. "It was Dad," he said simply, his eyes watering. He went to take his seat, resting his head in his hands.

That was Sam's cue to start asking questions. "What's your name?" he asked her.

She turned on her seat towards him. "Peyton."

"Did your mom die in a fire when you were a baby, Peyton?" he asked, skipping his usual subtlety questions.

Peyton slowly nodded. "Yeah. How did you know that?"

Sam sighed. "My mom did, too. There's this thing that causes the fires and Dean and I are trying to find it."

"Thing? What are you saying?"

He tapped his fingertips on his knees. "I'm saying that…" He stopped. "Do you want me to be perfectly honest?"

She nodded, and Sam continued, "My brother and I hunt demons. Actually anything that is supernatural and evil. We find it and we kill it."

Peyton stared at him trying to comprehend what she had just heard. "You kill evil supernatural things?" she said slowly.

"Yes, we do." That was Dean. She turned to face him. "A demon started the fires that killed our mom and your mom and we're trying to find it."

"So that guy who was following me…what was he?"

"He's a hunter, too," Dean told her. He was in the mood to talk and here he could tell a girl just how screwed up his life was. "He specializes in vampires."

"Vampires?" She was getting scared. She had been stalked and had many attempts on her life and now she was learning that those scary things in movies were true.

"Yeah. You're not a vampire though are you?" Dean knew she was scared. He was being harsh to her but she just needed to know the truth.

"No. I didn't even know they existed," Peyton said, noting Dean's harsh stare.

"Yeah, they do," he said, as if it was the most normal thing to tell someone.

"Then why was he after me?" she asked.

"I know why," Sam spoke up.

She turned back to him. "Why? I'm not a vampire so why was he after you?"

"This may sound a little strange but every child that was saved by their father in a fire by that demon, has some sort of psychic ability," he explained.

"Ability? What is this? Buffy or the X-Men or something?" This was just too outrages for her to comprehend.

Sam smiled. He actually chuckled a little too. "Not exactly. A few months ago I met this kid, Max. He could control things with his mind."

"Like telekinesis?" Peyton asked.

He nodded. "Exactly. And I…I have visions. They're actually premonitions."

She shook her head. "You've got to be kidding me."

"No. I can't control them but they happen. I only have them when it has to do with this demon."

"So what should my power be?" Peyton asked. "Should I be able to read minds or turn invisible?"

Sam glanced over at Dean. "Gordon said that he knew what your ability was."

"That guy who was trying to kill me?"

"Yeah, he's the one."

"And he said my ability was?"

Sam took a deep breath. "He said that your shadow is a different entity of you. It has it's own mind and it does things that you don't know about."


	3. Freak

**Chapter Three: Freak**

Peyton shook her head. _No. That can't be true._ Even Dean looked up at Sam oddly.

"Come again?" Dean said. "When did he say that?"

"Just before you came inside," Sam told his brother.

"And I didn't hear it?"

"Guess not."

"No. This can't be happening." It was Peyton; she was shaking her head, incapable to think that something as crazy as her shadow being separate from her body was true.

"And yet it is," Dean said.

_How can he sound smug?_ Peyton thought. _How can he sound smug when I just realized that a part of me _isn't_ a part of me!_

She turned calmly to Sam. "How does he know?"

"He'd been following you for a while. And more than the two weeks when you noticed him. He saw that your shadow didn't always follow your actions and he tried to kill you because your shadow was evil. But you can't kill a shadow and it protected you. That slash across his face is from your shadow trying to protect you."

_No! No! No!_ She thought. _I just started college. I have a normal life!_ "Great now I'm a freak."

"Hey! Don't use that word lightly," Dean said to her.

She was about to shoot him a remark when Ellen spoke up. "How about we let you three talk things over? There's an extra cot in Jo's room if you want to stay here, Peyton." With that, her and Jo walked out of the bar into a hall that led to a more house-like part of the building.

"Peyton, I know this is a lot to take in but if it's true then-" Sam was cut off by Peyton who had started talking.

"My dad died a year ago. I was staying at his apartment because I was looking for a cheap house by the university. I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up, he was-he was laying on his bedroom floor, sliced to pieces. There were no fingerprints and none of the knives from the kitchen had been used. The police didn't know what to think."

"Cops don't know anything," Dean said shortly.

She turned to him, tears filling her eyes. "Do you think that my shadow did that?"

Sam thought about it for a minute. "The demon wants all of the people like us to turn into murderers. Like Max…Maybe he has in mind to make us into a murderous army or something."

"So my shadow did kill my dad?"

"It's possible," Sam told her. "But you can't control it so it wasn't your fault."

"Not my fault?!" She stood up unable to just sit and listen anymore. "How can it not be my fault? My own shadow killed my father! My _shadow!_ How can I just be fine after learning something like that?"

"Dude," Dean said to his brother, his eyes on her shadow on the floor. Sam joined his brother's gaze and his eyes grew wide. Her shadow was growing taller, and it had long pointed fingers that were slowly clicking against each other. The strangest part was that it had eyes. They were shaped like normal human eyes but they were totally white.

"Uh, Peyton," Sam said, getting up from his seat. "Could you calm down please?"

"Why?" How could she calm down? She had learned too many disturbing things in this past conversation.

"Because your shadow is getting angry."

"What?" She turned around and to her horror saw her shadow on the floor behind her. Even though she had turned, it stayed put growing taller it's eyes glowing brightly.

"Oh my God!" she screamed as it lifted a hand ready to slash Dean right in his seat.


	4. Control

**Chapter Four: Control**

"Think, Peyton!" Sam told her hurriedly. "Concentrate and make it stop."

Tears streamed down her face. "I can't!"

"Yes you can! You have to try!" He looked around trying to figure out where the shadow was. Dean meanwhile felt the slight wind as the shadow moved its claw down to get him and he lunged out of the way.

"Can't you help her?" he called to his brother.

"She has to do it herself," Sam said, watching Peyton who was on her knees searching around for the shadow so she could try to stop it. _I can't let it hurt them,_ she thought, closing her eyes. She felt around for the small connection that should be between her and her shadow and found it somehow.

"I can't let you hurt them," she told it sternly. "You have to stop it. Stop it right now. Stop it!" She yelled the last part loudly and the shadow went to its usual place on the floor behind her. It's eyes still showed but it was calm.

"Oh my God, oh my God," she kept saying over and over, rocking on her knees. She looked up to see Dean leaning on a chair and Sam looking at her, confused. _He looks confused a lot,_ she told herself.

"How did I do that?" she asked. "How did I make it stop?"

Sam shook his head. "I'm not sure, but we are born with these powers so we should eventually find out how to use them."

"It was going to kill you," she said quietly.

"You have to keep the damn thing under control," Dean said shaking his head. "You can't have it kill any more people."

She bit her lip and took a deep breath. "I don't know if I'll be able to control it all the time," she said, slowly getting to her feet.

"You'll have to learn how," Sam told her. She walked over to them, still not quite understanding all that had happened to her.

"I guess I'll just have to try," Peyton said. "It didn't hurt you did it?"

Sam shook his head. "No. I think it missed us. Maybe you should get some sleep and we'll figure more out in the morning."

She nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."

"I'm not going to sleep with that thing walking around here," Dean said.

"I don't think it can muster up enough anger to attack two times in one day," Peyton told him.

"How do you know it runs on anger?" Sam asked.

"I just thought of all the times somebody got hurt by what I guess would be my shadow and I was always angry whenever those bad things happened," she said.

"Well that's one thing figured out," Sam said. "Now Ellen said that there was a cot in Jo's room so I guess you can sleep there. I'll show you where it is." He turned to his brother. "Dean? Are you coming?"

"No. I'll stay up for a while," was his response.

Shrugging, Sam showed Peyton where Jo's room was and when went off to his 'room' that he shared with Dean.

"I heard some shouts out there," Jo said, turning over in her bed to look at Peyton as she crawled onto the spare cot in her clothes.

"Yeah. We had a problem but it's figured out now," Peyton told her. "Thanks for letting me sleep here."

"No problem. Not too many times I meet a girl my age anyway."

"Yeah," Peyton said, staring at the ceiling. She was quiet as was her new roommate and she quickly fell into a deep dreamless sleep.


	5. Maybe Just A Little

**Chapter Five: Maybe…Just A Little**

Peyton was woken up by the sun shining through the window. Squinting, she rolled onto her back and then sat up. Jo was sitting up on her bed, reading.

"I was just about to wake you up," she said, looking up from her book. "My mom's making omelets."

Peyton smiled. "Food sounds good right about now. Do you have a bathroom so I can make myself a little bit presentable?"

Jo nodded and got up. "Follow me."

She followed and realized that she still had her boots on. _How the hell did I sleep in my boots?_ She thought. Jo pushed open a door that revealed a bathroom.

"This is the girls only bathroom," Jo told her as she splashed some water on her face and attempted to straighten out her hair.

"Here use this," Jo said, grabbing a small brush from a drawer on the sink.

"Thanks," Peyton said, slowly brushing through her hair. "So you live here with your mom?"

She nodded. "Yeah. And Asher. Dean and Sam are just staying here until another hunt comes along."

"Hunt?"

"They hunt demons," she started.

"Right. I remember." And if fact she remembered everything. All the horrifying details of the previous night. She glanced down at her shadow, which had taken normal form and didn't have its eyes anymore. She put down the brush and smiled at Jo.

"So I'm guessing you like one of the Winchesters?" It wasn't a quite a question or a statement. And Peyton loved the look on Jo's face. Living alone with her mom couldn't leave her with a lot of girl friends to talk too.

"You guessed correctly," Jo said, starting to walk towards the bar. Peyton followed and when they reached the doorframe, she stopped for a moment to convey the scene before her. Dean and Sam along with another man (who she noted had a mullet) were sitting at the bar chowing down on omelets. Ellen wasn't in the room so Peyton guessed she was in the kitchen cooking. Sam and Dean looked their way as they walked into the room. Dean's glance lingered a little longer on Jo and Sam's on Peyton.

"Why, good mornin', girls," Ellen said, coming in with two plates sporting omelets. The girls sat down, Jo next to Dean and Peyton next to her.

"Now who's this one?" It was the guy with the mullet. He had gotten up from his seat next to Sam and walked to the young women at the end of the bar.

"Oh, Peyton," Jo said, turning in her seat. "This is Asher. Asher this is Peyton."

Peyton gave him a weak nod and he made his way to the hall and disappeared. She looked down at the omelet in her plate, but she couldn't eat. "Sam," she started, getting up from her seat next to Jo to sit next to the youngest Winchester brother. "Can I ask you something?"

She saw Dean raise his eyebrows and almost rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, sure," Sam said.

"Last night, you said that all of the people who have abilities, have them to do with their minds. But I don't. I have an evil shadow." _I sound ridiculous_, she thought. _If only my friends could hear me now._

"I see her point, Sam," Dean said, leaning his elbows on the bar and looking at her.

Jo and Ellen started picking up the plates, leaving the three of them to talk things over.

"I mean, maybe my mom wasn't killed by a demon. Maybe my mom dying in a fire and me having a power is just a coincidence," Peyton told them.

Sam shook his head. "I don't think so."

"No? How do you figure?" she asked him, noticing the cute little look he got whenever he was trying to figure something out.

"Well, you control your shadow with your mind."

"I shouldn't have to control it period!"

"I agree," Dean said, a slight smile on his lips.

"Yeah, but you have to, Peyton," Sam told her.

She shook her head. "Maybe I should just leave. Just go back to college and live a normal life."

"Oh my God!" It was Dean again. "You sound just like Sam. You're not normal so you can never have a so called 'normal life'."

Sam nodded. "Dean's right. At least, stay here and let me help you try to control it a little better. Then you can go off to college or whatever you want to do."

She thought about it for a minute. _It wouldn't be bad to get some control over my shadow. And I wouldn't mind staying here longer for another reason._ She glanced under half-closed eyelids at Sam.

"Fine. I'll stay for a little while, then I have to get back to school."

Sam nodded. "Okay. Deal's a deal."


	6. Connection

**Chapter Six: Connection**

"The whole mind thing's more of your area, Sam," Dean said. "I think I'll stay here."

Sam nodded and walked with Peyton outside. They walked around the back of the small building and stopped.

"How am I supposed to learn to control it if I need to be made for it to do anything?" she asked, standing in front of Sam.

"How did you control your shadow last night?" he asked her calmly.

She thought for a minute about it. "I searched out for the connection between me and my shadow. I don't know how I knew what to do."

He smiled. "If you're born with a power, you'll learn how to use it. Now, I need you to find that connection again."

She nodded. "I'll try." Closing her eyes, she searched her mind and found that small dark corner where her shadow resided. She slowly opened her eyes and surprisingly, still felt the connection.

"Did you find it?"

"Yeah," she said, concentrating her whole mind on that bond.

"Then you should be able to make it do something. Try telling it to stay where it is and then _you_ move."

She nodded and concentrated on the link. She noticed that she didn't need to speak out loud to her shadow like she had last night. She told it to stay through her mind, and then took a step to the right. She took a fearful glance down at the ground and noticed that her shadow hadn't followed.

"Oh my God! I did it!"

Peyton smiled and looked at Sam, who smiled back at her.

"You did it once and now you just need to practice with it," he told her.

She nodded, ready to work more with her shadow and their connection

"How'd it go?" Dean asked them as Sam and Peyton came back inside around noon. He was sitting down at the bar, sipping a beer.

"It went alright," Sam said, sitting beside his brother. Peyton sat beside Sam.

"I can control it all the time now," she assured him.

"Good. Because I know that I'd never want a girlfriend who's shadow could kill me," Dean said smugly.

Sam turned to his brother and gave him a look to kill. Peyton couldn't help smiling.

"So what now?" Jo asked, coming over to them.

Peyton sighed. "I need to get back to school. People have probably put out missing person ads for me already."

Dean and Sam laughed.

"Sam here can drive you back," Dean said, handing his keys to his brother.

"Um..okay," she said, standing up. "It was nice meeting you, Dean."

"Yeah," he said, giving her a small smiled. "Just next time we meet up, don't have your shadow try to kill me."

She smiled at him. "I won't."


	7. Goodbye

**Chapter Seven: Goodbye**

"I really appreciate you helping me, Sam," Peyton said, as she sat in the passenger seat of Dean's 1967 black Chevy Impala.

"Well, I know what it's like not being able to explain things," Sam said, his eyes on the road.

"Can you control your premonitions?" she asked softly.

He turned to her and didn't answer right away. "No. I can't. They only start when it has something to do with the demon."

"Did you have any about me?"

He frowned. "No, I actually never did."

She sighed. "Then maybe I was right about not being part of the whole demon thing."

"Maybe…"

"You still think I'm part of it?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Maybe your shadow wouldn't allow me to have visions about you."

"Well, it _does_ protect me," she said.

Sam turned to her. She looked sweetly back at him and he smiled.

"Do you have a piece of paper?" she asked suddenly.

"Uh…there might be some in the glove compartment," he told her.

She opened the compartment and found a wooden box, a gun (no wonder) and surprisingly a pad of paper and pen. She put everything back but the paper and pen and wrote something on the paper, tore it off and folded it in half.

"My house is just up this street," she said, pointing to the left. Sam turned down the street and stopped in front of a light blue house that she said was hers. They both got out and Peyton walked over to where he was standing by the driver's side door.

"Here's my number," she said, handing him the piece of paper she had written on. "Call me sometime when you're _not_ on a hunt and we can get together."

"Alright," he said, putting the paper in his pocket.

She shuffled her feet. "So maybe now that I have control over my shadow you can have premonitions about me now," she teased.

He laughed. "Yeah. Maybe."

"So I'll be waiting for a call," she said, looking up at him. She gave him a genuine smile then kissed him. It wasn't a petty kiss either. After the kiss, she walked up to her front door. Before going in she turned around to see him in the same spot he had been since he stopped the car.

"Goodbye," she called to him with a wave.

She saw him wave back then get into his brother's car and pull off the down street. With a smile she unlocked her front door and walked into her house, her view on life completely changed by one evil shadow and one special guy.

THE END


End file.
